Materia Medica by Kent

SARSAPARILLA

(sars)

Sarsaparilla is suitable in low forms of chronic disease, especially in complex states resulting from mixed miasms; especially in cases of sycosis and syphilis; cases made complex by MERCURY, sycosis, syphilis, and psora. Weakness stamps itself on the whole economy, as in MERC. LACH. and other remedies. The tissues become flabby, refuse to heal when injured, ulcerate from slight causes. After an injury an open sore remains and is indolent or becomes phagedenic and spreads like ARS., LACH. and MERC. COR. Weakness over the whole body; a paralytic feeling. In the mental sphere it manifests itself in a dazed state, he is unable to comprehend, the mind is slow, it is a weakness bordering on imbecility, which in the end it may reach. Weakness of the mind and the tissues.

All the organs are slowed down, weak, sluggish, become congested. Weakness and dilatation of the veins, tendency to form varices in the limbs, varicose ulcers, haemorrhoids, varicose veins of the face and body. The face is often red and discolored in patches. When the circulation is feeble the parts turn blue, over the shin bones; on the backs of the feet, toes; blue spots like approaching senile gangrene. Useful in old age when black and blue spots appear on the backs of the hands and elsewhere.

Moist, itching, scurfy, and scabby eruptions. The skin of the backs and the palms of the hands becomes thick and indurated with a branlike scurf resembling psoriasis, intermingling with blue spots.

This remedy has many features as to cold and heat. The use of heat internally aggravates all complaints, but there is an external coldness relieved by heat; taking warm food and drink aggravates; wants cold food, but heat applied externally is grateful.

SECALE also produces great weakness of tissue, with venous stasis, ulceration and gangrene. But the two remedies, though similar in appearance, differ in regard to heat and cold.

The stomach is in a most miserable condition. Flatulence, continuous nausea, eructations and vomiting of sour food. Always complaining of fermentation and uneasiness of the stomach as if he had overeaten or as if the food had spoiled; digestion is slow and feeble.

Organs become tumid and congested. The throat, tongue, and mouth look as if about to ulcerate; purple spots look as if they would break down, but remain intact for Weeks and months.

Suitable in old syphilitics whose complaints have been suppressed by MERCURY; mind and body in a state of prostration; paralytic weakness of the lower extremities, no endurance; the heart palpitates on exertion; suffocation on the least exertion; always tired; ulcers here and there on the body; the skin is flabby and full of distress at night. BONE-PAINSWORSEATNIGHT. Sars. antidotes the MERC. and establishes reaction.

Marasmus of children from hereditary syphilis; emaciation about the neck; dry, purple, copper-like eruptions; no assimilation.

The child is always passing sand in its diaper, yellowish, or whitish like chalk; the child screams when it is about to urinate, because it remembers how painful the passing of urine is. Sometimes at the close of urination it gives forth an unearthly yell. This symptom is found in old broken down constitutions, a clutch in the bladder just as it shuts down causes him to cry out; pain at the end of urination.

Old debauches, enfeebled by wine and women, with weak heart, lungs, brain, and bladder, emaciated and shrivelled. Prematurely old, a man of forty looks to be eighty, feet swollen, totters about on a staff. NUX will palliate in early periods of breakdown, but the time comes when he is weak in body and mind and must have such remedies as Sars., LACH., SECALE, etc.

Eruptions appear in the Spring. All the venous remedies are braced up by Winter and go down in the Spring, as LACH., SECALE and HAMAM.

Catarrh of the bladder and kidneys. Involuntary urination of children at night in bed, in feeble children. There is a spasmodic condition of the sphincter when sitting to urinate, which makes the act impossible in that position, but WHENHESTANDSUPTHEURINEFLOWSFREELY. This is especially important when the symptom occurs in women, because they have great difficulty in urinating while standing. Copious urine at night; he floods the bed, but during the day he can pass it only when standing.

It is fifteen years since I reported the following case and the man has remained well ever since: "A man, 52 year-old, addicted to whiskey for years, had a copious flow of blood from the bowels some four months ago; the exertion of walking a few blocks causes suffocation; after the loss of blood, feet began to swell, both limbs to middle of thigh very oedematous, has had two or three nondescript chills; a few months ago, sudden paralytic weakness of left arm and leg, passed off in three hours, leaving a numbness in left hand and a tearing pain in left side of face and head; no appetite; bloody discharge with stools; feels as if in a dream all the time; loss of memory; face covered with varicose veins and very red; general venous stasis; feeling on the top of the head as if struck with a hammer; must pass urine several times in a night; urine thick and cloudy after standing; but clear when first passed; has had much worry from financial troubles; cannot pass urine when sitting at stool, but flows freely when he is standing, albumen in the urine." When Sars. can take such a man, 52 years old, and restore him to health it is worth considering.

"Jerking sensation along the male urethra." "Each time she makes water, air passes out of the urethra with a gurgling noise." This symptom is common in catarrh of the bladder; it is caused by fermentation of the mucus and consequent formation of gas. "Frequent ineffectual urging to urinate with diminished secretion."

This medicine has many times dissolved a stone in the bladder; it so changes the character of the urine that it is no longer possible for the stone to build up, and it grows smaller by the continual dissolving off from the surface. I have seen the high colored, bloody, and mucous urine cleared up after the administration of Sars., but on standing, the sand would appear. When the urine again becomes cloudy, it is time for another dose. The urine holds in solution, that is, actually dissolves the substance of the stone.

Some years ago there was an old man upon whom a surgeon was expected to operate. They had sounded his bladder and said that he had a stone, but he came to the conclusion that he would not permit the operation. In spite of their warnings he sent for me and I took charge of his case. His symptoms called for Sars. The enormous amount of sand he passed in the next year was wonderful. It mitigated the catarrh and kept the bladder comfortable. At the end of a year, after a night of great suffering, he passed a stone the size of a pea. He passed several small stones after that and then returned to health.

A young man passed so much crusty deposit that I ordered him to use one commode and let it settle, pouring off the urine. At the end of a month there was a layer a sixteenth of an inch thick. This patient under Sars. had no stone. The sand continued to pass, but was held in solution and deposited only on cooling. In the course of time it disappeared. He was of a gouty nature and this was relieved.

Sars. has gouty nodes with extreme soreness. After the remedy has been given, there is a deposit of sand in the urine, which shows the good action of the remedy and should not be stopped.

"Obstinate constipation with violent urging to urinate; urging to stool with contraction of the intestines; excessive pressure from above downward, as if the bowels were pressing out; during stool, violent tearing, cutting in the rectum. Stool small, with much bearing down."